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Manuscript Source
London, British Library, Rawlinson B 502, 47a1–47a2.Dublin, Trinity College Library, H 2.16, Yellow Book of Lecan, p. 126b. For details see MS , T. K. Abbott and E. J. Gwynn (eds.), Catalogue of the Irish manuscripts in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin (Dublin 1921). See also Robert Atkinson (ed.), The Yellow Book of Lecan: a collection of pieces (prose and verse) in the Irish language, in part compiled at the end of the fourteenth century (Collotype facsimile with introduction, analysis of contents, and index) (Dublin 1896).Book of Ballymote, Dublin, Royal Irish Academy, MS 536, 449?485 (olim 23 P 12, Book of Ballymote) 134b. For details see Kathleen Mulchrone (ed.), Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Royal Irish Academy, fasc. 13. See also Robert Atkinson (ed.), The Book of Ballymote, a collection of pieces, prose and verse, in the Irish language in part compiled in the fifteenth century, published from the original manuscript, by the Royal Irish Academy with an Introduction, Analysis of contents and Index (Dublin 1887).
Editions, translations and literature
Kuno Meyer, Festschrift für Whitley Stokes zum siebzigsten Geburtstage am 28. Februar 1900 (...) (Leipzig: Harrassowitz 1900); poem edited from YBL. (Available online at CELT in file G100053).Kuno Meyer, reprint of above poem with English translation, Gaelic Journal 10 (1900) 578.
The edition used in the digital edition
Kuno MeyerStories and songs from Irish manuscripts, V: Orgain Néill NoígiallaigOtia Merseiana2LondonTh. Wohlleben1900–190184–92: 84–88

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The electronic text represents the edited text. Meyer's introduction is integrated. Names are capitalized in line with CELT practice. In Meyer's edition, the acute accent and macron are used to mark long vowels. Both are retained. Meyer's corrections are marked corr sic="" resp="KM". Text supplied by him is marked sup resp="KM"; editorial expansions are marked ex. Editorial footnotes are integrated into the electronic edition.

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Orgain Néill Noígíallaig or The Slaying of Niall of the Nine Hostages is here published and translated for the first time from the Bodleian MS. Rawlinson B 502, 47a1–47a2. Other versions representing a slightly different redaction of the same tale are to be found in the Yellow Book of Lecan, p. 126b (L), and in the Book of Ballymote, p. 134b (B). I quote their variants wherever they throw light on our text.

According to the Annals, Niall, the eponymus of the Húi Néill, was King of Ireland from A.D. 379–405. It is probable that the account given in our tale of his expedition to Alba contains a reminiscence of Irish invasions of Great Britain at the end of the fourth and the beginning of the fifth century. O'Donovan, indeed (

AFM p. 127, note 2) has no hesitation in identifying Niall with the Irish leader against whose attacks Stilicho had to defend himself; and perhaps the statement of the Annals that Niall was slain oc muir n-Icht, by the sea of Wight, i.e. the English Channel, is based upon fact. Similarly, the antiquary Cinaed úa Artacáin, who died in 975, says in his poem on the grave of Niall:
Niall mac Echach assa lecht / luid fa shecht clar trethan tricc, /
roreraig comarbus Cuind / co ngáet ós muing mara Icht. Niall, son of Eochu, whose is this grave, went seven times across the swift sea, / He ruled Conn's heritage until he was slain upon the crest of the sea of Wight.Book of Leinster, p. 154a

None of the three versions of our tale retains this old tradition; they are based on a number of different traditions in which later conditions are reflected. It is true, the mention of Roman hostages may perhaps be traced to an original account in which Niall's conflicts with the Romans in Britain were described, but in Britain itself our versions substitute the Saxons for the Romans. Similarly, the curious reference to the Picts — among the bards of the Pictfolk, paragraph 1.9. — may contain a reminiscence of the time when the Irish were the allies of the Picts in their raids against Romans and Britons. But all three versions contain startling anachronisms. Thus, the Rawlinson version makes the exiled Echu proceed to Erc, son of Munremor, in Scotland. This was the ancestor of the Dalriadic kings of Scotland, who according to the Annals died in A. D. 474. In the Book of Ballymote his son Loarn, the Loernus of Adamnan, the eponymus of the Lornes, takes his place, while in the Yellow Book the anachronism is still greater, for it substitutes Gabran, the son of Domongart, who died in A. D. 560.

With regard to Niall's epithet of the Nine Hostages, it is interesting to observe that the account given in the body of the tale does not tally with that of the verse quoted, which latter is no doubt the older and in all probability the true one.

Though the Rawlinson version is hardly earlier than the eleventh century, the poem on Niall's death with which it ends may be safely ascribed to the beginning of the ninth, as I have shown in the

Festschrift für Whitley Stokes, p. 2, where the whole poem is edited from the fuller copy in the Yellow Book.